The Sunday Mail
Bridge Reporter
Gateway High School was a hive of activity as it recently played host to its annual Career’ Fair; whose major objective is to provide a platform for pupils in secondary and high school to explore the various career options that are available on the market. This comes at a time when it is becoming increasingly evident that there are many other careers emerging as alternatives to university education. Schools from in and around Harare; including Cornway College, Heritage Senior School, Maranatha High School, Mazowe Boys and Prince Edward High School attended the Fair; where colleges, universities corporates, including fully integrated media giant Zimpapers; as well as small to medium enterprises were exhibiting and explaining what they have to offer.
The Fair also provided an opportunity for pupils to showcase their work and a budding author who is a pupil at Gateway High School; Rumbidzodzashe Munembe who launched her first book, “This means war: Battle of the Captains” had a stand where she was exhibiting and selling her book.
At the Careers’ Fair; students got the opportunity to meet face-to-face with representatives of various companies and get information on recruitment processes and qualifications required to qualify for certain programmes or opportunities.
Zimpapers Public Relations and Corporate Affairs Manager who led a team from the media house including marketing people, editorial teams as well as those in branding and events said the company had decided to exhibit at the Fair so that it could explain to pupils the many exciting career opportunities that keep coming up in an evolving media.
“The truth of the matter is that the media industry is growing and evolving by the day. Where we used to just know of newspapers and magazines; today the world is hooked on their gadgets such as mobile phones and you have to ensure that content gets to them on those mobile phones.
‘‘The young and tech savvy audiences have grown up in a digital era and there is need to reach out to them through digital platforms as we are doing. We are now in radio broadcasting with Star FM and Diamond FM and with such platforms; one’s talent such as having a good voice or being a good public speaker becomes an avenue for a career.”
“We therefore had an opportunity to explain all these opportunities to the young people. It was exciting to see how articulate and curious they are.
They ask so many questions and they genuinely want help to choose the right paths to follow in life. We learnt that many children are not comfortable opening up about certain career choices due to the pressure and expectations that they face from parents who wish them to be doctors and lawyers always,” she said. Pupils who attended the Fair bemoaned how parents find it difficult at times to allow children to venture into fields they are good and passionate about; pushing them instead into the traditional career choices; which were deemed lucrative over the years; when technology has shown that at times one can be a billionaire through non-traditional careers as shown by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerbag.
The energetic Herald Cool lifestyle Editor Monica Cheru Mupambawashe took time to articulate to the students what the Cool Lifestyle is about with several pupils expressing an interest in writing for Zimpapers publications.
The pupils had the opportunity to go live on Star FM radio getting the opportunity to speak to DJ Mox during the TXO.
Career Fairs are good opportunities which allow for pupils to interact with universities and companies. Some of the companies that were at the Fair included the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings; Lafarge and Trust Academy.
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